GRAND RAPIDS — As of Sunday, George Clinton, William Rufus King, Hannibal Hamlin and Gerald R. Ford have one more thing in common. At some point in the past 30 years, Texas history buff Peter Brown has visited their final resting places.

They also happen to have served as vice president of the United States.

Brown made a snowy trip from Indiana, where he was visiting family, to stop by the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum and grave site. His enthusiasm rivaled the excitement of children nearby who were petting live reindeer in the bracing cold during a holiday celebration.

“Oh, it’s beautiful,” said the shivering Texan as he surveyed Ford’s site next to the Grand River. “It’s a beautiful setting. As far as settings go, I’d have to rank this as among the best.”

Brown said he graduated from the University of New Mexico with a history degree and then had to earn a living in the construction trades before he was able to translate his love of history into a business conducting historical tours.

In 1980, Brown said he noticed his business was taking him to the grave sites, but he said visiting them all did not become a quest until 2002, when he read a Chicago Tribune article by C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb who had made learning about the vice presidents a mission.

Between 2002 and 2008, Brown was wandering around cemeteries, where some graves were easier to find than others. He said the Midwest seems to have the more elaborate grave sites, often including elaborate markers hailing from the Gilded Age of the late 19th century.

On the other hand were plainer sites. Nixon’s Vice President Spiro Agnew, who resigned in disgrace and was replaced by Ford, has a nondescript flat marker in Timonium, Md., with only his name and the vital dates. The ashes of Ford’s vice president, Nelson Rockefeller, were scattered by his wife on private property near the estate in Tarrytown, N.Y., and she will not allow people to visit the site.

By 2008, Brown had visited all but one grave site and awaited an opportunity to get to Grand Rapids.

“You’d have to be crazy to just set out to do this,” said Brown, adding that he had to be somewhat close to a site on other business to visit. “But if there’s a vice president buried anywhere near me, I’d drive 200 miles to get there.”

He may not be crazy, but he did make the white-knuckle drive from Indiana through lake-effect snows to get to Grand Rapids. “There were times where I thought I was going to turn around.”

After a short visit, he said he would be heading back to south of Gary, Ind.

Brown said he has worked through another list of sites: He has visited all the Big Ten football stadiums and ranks Wisconsin’s as the best and Ohio State’s as the worst.

He also says that as far as presidential museums and libraries go, Nixon’s was the most depressing, in part because the lack of attendance, compared with some place like the Ronald Reagan Library.

So, what’s next, all the grave sites of the Speakers of the House of Representatives?

“No, you’d have to be crazy to do that,” he said. Visits to the 50 big college football stadiums is next on his bucket list, he said.